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Madhya Pradesh has registered an unwanted record this year. The highest number of paddy stubble fires (16,360) have been reported from Madhya Pradesh between September 15 and November 30 this year, as per the government.
Madhya Pradesh alone accounts for 44 per cent of the 37,602 stubble fire incidents across six states, according to the bulletin of the Consortium for Research on Agroecosystem Monitoring and Modelling from Space (CREMS) of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (IARI) based in New Delhi.
While Punjab has been infamous for paddy stubble fires for the past several years, Madhya Pradesh has beaten it this year in this regard. The northern state recorded a total of 10,909 fire incidents this year.
CREMS monitors paddy stubble fires in the six states through satellite remote sensing. According to the bulletin data, 6 of the 10 districts with the most fires in 2024 are from Madhya Pradesh.
Sheopur district is at first position among these 10 districts, with a total of 2,508 fire incidents recorded. Sangrur district of Punjab (1,725 incidents) is in second place.
Other districts of Madhya Pradesh that find a place in these 10 districts include Hoshangabad, Datia, Guna, Ashok Nagar, Raisen and Jabalpur.
In 2024, stubble fire incidents in Punjab decreased by more than 300 per cent compared to 2023, while Madhya Pradesh saw an increase of nearly 25 per cent.
In 2023, Madhya Pradesh had 12,500 fire incidents and was second only to Punjab (36,663). Last year, Sheopur and Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh were among the ten most fire-prone districts.
Even in 2022, Madhya Pradesh (11,737) was second only to Punjab (49,922) but no district in the state was among the 10 major stubble fire districts. Similarly, in 2021, Madhya Pradesh recorded a total of 8,160 incidents of paddy stubble fires and was second only to Punjab (71,304).
It is shocking that the districts of Madhya Pradesh are among the districts with the highest stubble burning in the last two years. Down To Earth (DTE) visited Sheopur, the district with the highest stubble fires in 2024, to know the reasons for this. DTE found countless farms with burnt stubble in Sheopur’s Karahal and Baroda blocks, proof that there had been large-scale burning of paddy stubble.
The area under paddy in the district has almost doubled during the last five years.
An area of 30,000-40,000 hectares out of 165,000 hectares was under paddy cultivation in 2018-19, SL Gurjar, chief scientist of the Krishi Vigyan Kendra located in Baroda block, told DTE.
This increased to about 85,000 hectares in 2024. The production of paddy has increased to 286,847 tonnes in 2022-23, from 168,612 tonnes in 2018-19.
Gurjar said the district has received good monsoon rains in recent years, which has improved the groundwater situation. Farmers have consequently started preferring the cultivation of paddy to soybean and urad (black gram) grown traditionally
In the 2024 monsoon season, Sheopur received a total rainfall of 1,323 mm, which is 99 per cent more than the normal rainfall of 666 mm. This year, Sheopur has received the highest rainfall than the average in any district in Madhya Pradesh. In 2023, there was two per cent more rainfall than normal. Earlier in 2022, the district recorded more than 1,000 mm. In 2021 too, it recorded 100 per cent more monsoon rainfall than normal.
Excess rains in the last five years prompted most farmers, including Hariom Yadav living in Silpuri village of Karahal block, to grow paddy. Yadav said his family owns 80 bighas or 9 hectares of land. He has shifted from soybean and urad to paddy. His village has around 2,500 bighas (279 hectares) of agricultural land, of which around 70 per cent has been cultivated with paddy this year.
Yadav added that the entire district is witnessing the trend of increasing paddy cultivation. Every year, the area under paddy increases as excess rains damaged soybean and urad. In the last four-five years, the practice of digging and utilizing borewells has also gained momentum due to paddy cultivation in the district. Good power supply has helped this trend.
Rohit Suman of Nagda village has five borewells in his 35 bigha (4 hectare) farm. The cost of paddy cultivation is high but the profit is also better than other crops, he told DTE.
Suman added that he knew there is more use of chemicals in paddy cultivation and consumption of groundwater is also high. His village itself has witnessed the construction of 20 new borewells this year.
The farmer said the region may witness a groundwater crisis in the coming years, given the speed at which people are gravitating towards paddy cultivation.
He and many farmers from the district learnt paddy farming from Punjabi Sikhs settled here. Shambhudayal Prajapati, a farmer from Silpuri, said, “We did not know how to grow paddy. We have learnt it from the Punjabis.”
Amandeep, 32, from Karhal, is one such farmer who came to Sheopur in 2013. He said his father migrated from Bathinda to Guna district in 1982. “When there was a shortage of water in Guna, he settled in Sheopur and bought 50 bighas (5.5 hectares) of farmland here,” said Amandeep.
He added that around 50-60 houses in Karhal belong to Punjabis. Due to the high population of Punjabis, Mau and Janpura villages located in Baroda block have come to be termed as ‘Mini Punjab’.
Most farmers in the district prefer the Pusa 1718 variety of basmati paddy. In the last five years, paddy procurement in the Sheopur grain market (mandi) has risen ponentially due to the qualitative increase in paddy yield.
In 2018-19, 2,514 quintals of paddy arrived in the mandi. This figure increased to 12,40,225 quintals in 2023-24. Meanwhile, the amount of soybean has come down to 7,197 quintals, from 95,198 quintals, in this period.
Manoj Dhakad, a paddy trader in the mandi, said about 40,000 quintals of paddy is being sold daily in Sheopur Mandi at the moment. He estimated that paddy is being planted in more than 90 per cent of the district’s area. No wonder then that 95 per cent of the total produce coming to the market is made up of just paddy. The produce of paddy farmers gets sold within 6-7 days in the market.
Gurpreet Singh, a resident of Janpura, said paddy farmers are able to set fire to the stubble as the administration has not yet paid attention to it.
Ajay Yadav, a resident of Jaknaund village in Shivpuri district adjoining Sheopur, said two people have cultivated paddy in his village for the first time this year. He sees the growing trend of paddy in Madhya Pradesh as a warning bell.
For complete analysis, subscribe to the 1-15 March 2025 edition of Down To Earth